


House Rules

by beautifulterriblequeen



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Feelsy, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Moonfam, Soft Elf Dads, Young Rayla, gay elf dads, just tree house things, soft, your honor they're all just doing their best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 09:34:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30103902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautifulterriblequeen/pseuds/beautifulterriblequeen
Summary: Runaan and Ethari do their best to help little Rayla through her first days in the tree house after her parents leave for the Storm Spire.
Relationships: Ethari & Rayla & Runaan (The Dragon Prince), Ethari/Runaan (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 44





	House Rules

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mynewgroove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mynewgroove/gifts).



Ethari hissed in pain and jerked his hand back, clutching his injured finger in hurt surprise. Surrendering for the moment, he withdrew, navigating the curving hall on autopilot until he reached the kit room, with its neatly stacked and ordered supplies—including all things medical. Troubled thoughts jangled in his head, and he patiently wove them into swirls he could manage better.

 _All is well_ , he told himself. But he paused with a strip of dark green bandaging dangling from his fingers. _All will be well_ , he amended. _It’s bedtime. She’s tired. She just needs time._

“What’s this?” Runaan’s soft voice interrupted his reassurances, and his cool hands gently claimed Ethari’s warm ones. “You’ve hurt yourself?”

Ethari scoffed lightly. “The most dexterous craftsman in the Silvergrove doesn’t go about collecting injuries willy nilly,” he said, attempting to sound reassuring.

His words had the opposite effect. Runaan’s white brows drew together in concern, and his gaze darted from Ethari’s face to his injured finger.

As he tried to lift Ethari’s hand for a better look, the craftsman thwarted him, wrangling his hand free and hiding it behind his back. “It’s nothing. I’m taking care of it.”

Runaan stepped closer and wrapped his arms around Ethari, securing that wayward, injured hand in a soft but firm grip and holding it against Ethari’s back. He raised one brow in soft chastisement for Ethari’s falsehood as they stood nose to nose. Ethari’s shoulders slumped guiltily. He’d been too obvious again.

Mission completed, Runaan turned his arrest into a gentle hug. “If it’s nothing, my heart, then it has no need of your care. Let me see.” He guided Ethari’s unresisting hand from behind his back and held it up for examination. But when his eyes found their mark, they widened sharply and snapped up to meet Ethari’s with a silent, burning question.

“She’s just upset,” Ethari averred, looking aside.

“She _bit_ you.” Runaan’s voice was flat.

“Because she’s upset!” Ethari repeated.

Runaan’s mouth firmed. “I’ll speak with her.”

“Wait,” Ethari blurted, catching at Runaan’s hands as he withdrew them in departure. Runaan instinctively cupped Ethari’s hurt finger to protect it from his strong grip, but Ethari put on a winning smile. “You can’t leave me behind all unbandaged like this, can you? What if I bleed out while you’re gone?” His smile shifted to a pretty pout.

Runaan struggled for a moment, caught between duty and love. His eyes shifted between his husband’s defusing antics and the doorway that led toward his wayward protégé. They traced a curving swirl across the wooden floor as they meandered back to Ethari’s boots, and his shoulders softened. “Of course I can’t leave you like this,” he murmured. He studied Ethari’s finger again. “Did you wash it first? Elfling mouths are filthy places.”

“Let’s say I didn’t,” Ethari said, stalling happily.

Runaan’s patient look brushed across him with the cool shadow of Moon phoenix wings, protective but exasperated. “Then let’s begin there.”

Ethari dipped his horns deferentially. “Of course, Runaan. You know best.” He grinned in Runaan’s wake as his husband drew him over to a basin of fresh water.

Runaan washed Ethari’s hands with thorough care, and Ethari relaxed and enjoyed his husband’s soft attention. The way Runaan’s calluses brushed so gently against his own as he focused on his task sent a little thrill down Ethari’s spine. Those hands were capable of dark deeds, but they also managed an excellent field dressing. Runaan always did his utmost to hold as much life in his hands as he could, to balance all the death he had to carry.

Ethari was always happy to help Runaan hold life in his hands, and his own was the easiest to offer.

But now they had a new life in the tree house with them. All three of them were shuddering from the echoing silence of Lain and Tiadrin’s recent departure for the Storm Spire, but Rayla and Runaan were already very closely bonded. The weight of Runaan’s participation in that decision had been stiffening his shoulders for days.

Ethari studied the water that swirled around Runaan’s tender attentions and felt his brows droop. Rayla didn’t deserve Runaan’s stiff shoulders. She needed his soft touch, no matter what she’d done.

Runaan patted Ethari’s hands dry and reached for some salve. Ethari curled his finger around Runaan’s and asked coyly, “Does my life-threatening injury get a kiss first?”

Runaan studied the bitten digit seriously. “What makes you think my mouth is any cleaner than Rayla’s?” he asked.

Ethari batted his lashes and rested his unhurt hand at Runaan’s waist, drawing him in. “Please? You know your kisses are magic.”

Runaan tried unsuccessfully to flatten out his smile. “They are no such thing, Ethari,” he protested, even as he lifted Ethari’s finger to his lips and pressed a soft kiss beside his injury.

“I’ll be the judge of what is and is not magical,” Ethari declared. He closed his eyes and breathed in through his nose, waving his arms slowly in a centering pose. “Ahh. I feel better already,” he said. “See? Magic.” He performed a little flourish and posed prettily.

Runaan tsked quietly and recaptured Ethari’s injured hand. He set to work finishing his medical treatment, and soon Ethari had a perfectly neat green bandage circling his finger.

He opened his mouth to request another kiss atop the bandage, but Runaan met his eyes knowingly and smooched it before he could ask. “Predictable,” he chided lovingly.

Ethari beamed and tilted his chin rakishly. “My husband knows me so well.”

Runaan blinked, and a soft smile blossomed beneath the gentle pink flush in his cheeks.

There.

“And it’s time we got to know Rayla even better,” Ethari continued smoothly. “She needs us both, and we need her. But right now, she’s feeling lost.”

Runaan’s smile faltered in soft confusion, and his brows twitched together. “She’s not lost. She’s upstairs.”

Ethari squeezed Runaan’s hand and leaned in, his face tenderly intent. “Her heart is torn. Half of it is safe here with us, but half of it left for the Storm Spire last week. Her sadness is too big to see past, and…” Ethari turned his hand over and studied his new bandage. “It doesn’t always come out as sadness.”

Runaan cupped Ethari’s hand and examined it too, though his heart dwelt on Rayla. “I see.”

He didn’t see. But Ethari knew a secret request from his husband when he heard it. “She trusts you, Runaan.” He squeezed those skilled hands, entwined with his own at gentle repose. “Give her something else to focus on, and she’ll follow your lead. You’ve always known best what she’s capable of.”

Runaan’s eyes lingered on Ethari’s bandage, but he nodded crisply. He took a bracing breath, shifting his focus as smoothly as a moonstrider bolting into motion, and met his husband’s gaze. “You’re sure you’re alright?”

Ethari’s smile glowed like a rising Moon, warm and reassuring. “I am now,” he said softly.

Runaan nodded again, equally soft. He stepped closer and tucked his hands beneath Ethari’s scarf, atop his muscular shoulders, letting his husband’s body warmth radiate into the cool focus he carried.

Ethari rested his hands lightly at Runaan’s waist and let their foreheads touch.

Runaan’s lips found his, and they kissed gently. “My heart,” he murmured warmly.

“And mine,” Ethari said.

With hearts and minds in tandem, they had no more need for words. An endless moment passed, and then Runaan slipped from his grasp with a last, grateful look, trailing his fingers along Ethari’s until they parted. He let his feet carry him toward Rayla’s room, while his hands glowed with Ethari’s warmth.

He knocked on Rayla’s door with a gentle knuckle. “Rayla? May I come in?”

His little charge replied only with silence. But it was a very _pointed_ silence. Runaan slipped inside, making a bit of polite noise so Rayla knew he was there—

He paused one step into the room in surprise.

Rayla’s bed had become a small mountain of blankets and pillows. They stacked so high that he wasn’t sure if she was sitting up, lying down, or lurking behind it in ambush. He crossed the room with searching eyes. “Rayla?”

A tiny stick jabbed out of the pillow mound at him, clenched in a white-knuckled fist. “Fight me.”

Runaan blinked. Rayla’s voice was taut and raw. With a heavy heart, he recalled Ethari’s words. Of course he’d been right about Rayla’s big sad feelings. His little blade had been crying, and she was trying to hide it. Trying to distract Runaan from what they both knew she’d done to Ethari’s finger, too.

Or was she demanding punishment—asking for certain defeat—before Runaan could pass his own judgement on her? Runaan’s brows bent at the very thought, and he regretted his initial anger. He crouched beside the soft mound, assuming Rayla was tracking him from within. “Training begins tomorrow after breakfast. You can fight me then, hmm?”

The little stick drooped, then snapped back up.

He pretended that counted as assent. “Good. Now, you’re not planning to sleep under all of those tonight, are you?” Runaan began lifting away the top pillow.

The stick jabbed toward his ribs. “I can fight you now, too,” came Rayla’s muffled voice.

Runaan smoothly pivoted aside and lifted away another pillow, revealing a grumpy little Rayla at his eye level, with blotchy pink cheeks, tangled hair, drooping ears, and a tight expression. “Not if you can’t see me from under your pillow mountain,” he replied.

“I see you now.”

“I see you too, Rayla,” Runaan replied softly. His eyes lingered on her tear-stained cheeks. He had been that young too, once.

Rayla’s stick hovered for a moment before withdrawing in broody silence. She looked aside, frustrated and sad. “So you’re not gonna fight me?”

The wobble in her voice stabbed at Runaan’s heart. He took a deep breath and thought quickly. “Not right now. No battles before bedtime. Ethari’s House Rule #27.”

“Oh.” A pause. “When did he make that one? I only know the first twenty you taught me.”

Runaan offered a gentle smile and lifted one brow. “It’s new as of today.”

“Oh,” she said again, though her brows drew together in confusion. “Because of me? Does he need more rules because I’m here?”

Runaan tipped his horns to the side and said, “ _Ethari_ doesn’t need the house rules, little blade. You and I do. They’re for us, to keep us balanced. And… and happy, and safe. Ethari cares about us both very much, and he knows things that we don’t always remember. So he helps us out with his house rules, and that’s good for everyone.”

Rayla nibbled her lip thoughtfully, exactly the way Tiadrin did when she was having an incisive thought. “So Ethari made seven whole rules for me today?”

Runaan’s nod was crisp. “Yes he did. You should ask him tomorrow what they are.”

Her lip nibbles continued. “Okay. But that means the other twenty—the first twenty—those rules are just for you. You needed twenty rules to live with Ethari?”

Runaan froze in surprise as he was hit by a wave of nostalgia. Tiadrin might well have been in the room with him, so strongly did he feel her thoughtful spirit. Her daughter’s insight beamed like the Moon itself, and for a moment, Runaan felt outshone. “Rules are the light in the darkness,” he said.

“Well, you do call Ethari ‘my light’,” Rayla concluded with a matter-of-fact eyebrow raise.

“I—” Runaan felt his cheeks warm. Lain’s light teasing and Tiadrin’s intuition blended so perfectly in Rayla’s words that he could almost see them standing behind Rayla, grinning proudly at her. They were gone, but Rayla carried their hearts in hers, and their thoughts and words, too. Whenever she spoke, Runaan would hear his friends’ voices. Even if they were ribbing him about his soft side. He felt a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. “I do, yes.”

Rayla’s little shoulders slumped, and she plopped her face into the mound of blankets and pillows that surrounded her. “I’m sorry I bit your light’s finger,” she said in a muffled voice. “That was mean. Will you tell him for me, that I’m sorry?”

Runaan reached up and gently lifted Rayla’s chin until their eyes met. Her bright purple eyes were watery with miserable sadness, and she was trying her very best to keep a brave face for him. He held her gaze softly and swiped at a fresh tear with his thumb. “You can tell him yourself, tomorrow morning. When we make a mistake, we must fix it ourselves.”

Rayla opened her mouth to reply, gulped, and tried again. “Will you come with me?” she whispered. “I don’t want to do it all by myself.”

Torn between teaching Rayla to stand on her own and wanting to shelter her in his arms for the rest of her life, Runaan mustered his courage and replied quietly, “I’ll be there.”

Rayla’s face lit up like the Moon, and her ears perked. “Thank you, Runaan!”

He tilted his horns at her sudden exuberance, unable to hide a wry smile, and tousled her hair fondly. “It’s time for you to sleep, Rayla. We’ll continue this in the morning.” He stood and offered her the two pillows he’d taken.

She studied them seriously for a moment. Then she grinned up at him and nodded. “Good night, Runaan. And… thank you.”

“You’re welcome, little blade.”

Her eyes clung to his. “No… For letting me stay. With you.” Their gaze drew out, and in those bright purple sparks he could read every mote of her soul. Despite her overwhelming sorrow, her heart was still strong enough to reach out to his.

Sharp heat prickled in his eyes, and he blinked it away. He took a deep breath and set aside the pillows. Then he smoothed her tousled hair back from her face, bent down, and kissed her between her little horns. “Rayla. You’re family. You belong with us, now and always. Do you understand?”

Rayla’s voice was small. “Always? Even when I bite?”

Runaan crouched again and met Rayla’s eyes with clear confidence. “Even when you bite.”

Rayla nodded thoughtfully and snuggled back down inside her blankets and pillows. Runaan buried her in her soft cocoon again and slipped out, easing the door shut behind him.

He snuggled contemplatively in Ethari’s arms that night and pressed another magic kiss atop his husband’s bandaged finger. Ethari held him close, breathing softly into his hair, until they fell asleep.

He woke Ethari a little early and made sure he felt very appreciated, as per Ethari’s House Rule #3, which invoked a constant hurt/comfort balance. It was one of Runaan’s favorites. As his husband drowsed happily afterward, Runaan suggested they bring Rayla breakfast together.

“My husband with a plan this early in the morning?” Ethari mused, offering Runaan a soft smile as he tucked a wayward lock of hair behind his husband’s ear. “It must be important.”

Runaan kissed Ethari’s knuckles and pulled him into a sitting position. “It is.” He backed out of bed onto the floor, drawing Ethari reluctantly to his feet.

The craftsman stretched and yawned in all his muscled glory, and Runaan let his eyes roam in deep appreciation.

Ethari noticed and smiled. “C’mere, you,” he murmured, stepping close and slipping his arms around Runaan. His fingers worked with swift skill at unworking Runaan’s night braid while his lips nibbled happily along the edge of Runaan’s ear. “Shower, then make breakfast, then see Rayla. You washed my hands yesterday. My turn now. Let me at all this hair, hmm? I’m going to make it _so_ clean and pretty, the Moon itself will be jealous.” He gave Runaan’s hair a soft tug and smooched his cheek loudly.

Runaan’s eyes sparkled at Ethari’s soft elfhandling. “Yes, my light. Whatever you say.”

The husbands bantered their way through their morning routine and fussed just a bit more than necessary over fixing Rayla’s breakfast together in the kitchen. Ethari insisted on putting together a tray, complete with freshly picked nubblebud blossoms and three cheery adoraburrs who didn’t mind getting carried inside as long as they got to keep eating their pollenpops.

Runaan’s gaze lingered on the tray when Ethari held it up for inspection.

“Too much?” the craftsman asked, letting his ears droop.

“It’s perfect,” Runaan assured him. He rested a hand on Ethari’s shoulder and kissed his cheek softly.

When Runaan knocked on Rayla’s door, her little voice promptly intoned, “Come in.” Runaan shot a speculative glance at Ethari and opened the door.

Rayla had parted her pillow mound in two and sat cross-legged with her eyes shut between the two soft piles, her arms out wide as if holding them away with the sheer force of her will.

“Rayla?” Ethari blurted.

His voice snapped her out of her intense meditation, and she twitched hard enough to bounce on the bed. “Oh. Ethari.” Her eyes widened with uncertainty and immediately sought out Runaan.

Runaan blinked away his shock at seeing Rayla using that meditation technique—he’d only used it himself a handful of times, for deep soul-searching. Yet, once again, she’d been watching him closely when he wasn’t intending to teach her something. His heart swelled warmly at her deep trust in everything he did. With that foremost in his mind, he slid his gaze toward his husband, inviting Rayla to do the same.

Rayla gulped and clasped her hands together nervously. “Ethari… I…”

“…Need to start your day off right,” Ethari supplied when her voice faltered. He danced a few graceful steps as he crossed the room, swaying the tray expertly around him, until he bowed and presented it to her with a flourish. “Your breakfast, little moonberry. Complete with friends.”

Rayla tried her best to keep her squeal of delight quiet, and she immediately reached for the tray. But her gaze caught on Ethari’s bandaged finger, and her hands flinched back. She shot Runaan another nervous glance.

He gave her an encouraging nod and flicked his gaze toward Ethari again.

Rayla nodded seriously, accepting her task. She rested her hands on the sides of the tray and let out a heavy breath. Her gaze lingered on her moonberry tarts as she said clearly, “Ethari, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bit you. I was wrong, and I’ll do whatever I must to make it right.”

“Rayla.” Ethari’s voice was gentle, comforting. Runaan felt it draw his gaze along with his heart. His husband dropped smoothly to one knee, holding the tray perfectly in place, and smiled softly. “There’s nothing to forgive, moonberry. Look.” He urged the tray into her hands once more, and Rayla finally took a moment to see all the little things he’d added just for her.

Her smile blossomed like a lunabloom, and her hands firmed around the tray. “It’s… it’s not even my birthday…”

“A good craftsman never needs an excuse to make something pretty,” Ethari stated. He shot Runaan a wink over his shoulder. Runaan looked down and tried to hide his smile.

Rayla’s gaze flickered between them, and then her expression cleared. “Oh! Is that one of the first twenty house rules? What are the new ones? I need to learn them.”

Ethari blinked and looked back at Runaan, who smoothly interrupted with, “After breakfast. I’m sure Ethari needs some time to find his house rules masterlist. Don’t you, my light?”

Ethari studied Runaan intently for a long moment. “Yes,” he said, as a wicked gleam of amusement lit in his eyes. “Yes, yes I _do_. Rayla, please enjoy your breakfast, and your adoraburr company, until I can find that elusive list. Runaan, will you please lend me your tracking skills? I’m sure we can find it faster if we work _together_.”

The merriment in Ethari’s sunset eyes was so bright that Runaan knew he’d blundered into a situation where he’d be lucky to break even. He tried his best to keep his tone even as he replied, “My skills are at your service, as always, my light.”

Ethari gave Runaan a knowing smirk. Then he turned back to Rayla and smiled softly. He cupped her cheeks and pressed a smooch to her forehead. “All is well, Rayla. And all will be well. You belong with us now. You are our charge and our responsibility. It’s our duty to take care of you, but it’s also our pleasure. We love you, we always have, and we always will. No matter what.”

Rayla set the tray beside her and took Ethari’s big hand in hers. She stared sadly at the green bandage around his finger. “No matter what?” she murmured.

He gently nudged her chin up with his finger and winked. “No matter what.”

Her tentative little smile unfurled until it lit the whole room, and Runaan’s shoulders relaxed at last.

“Now then,” Ethari continued, “eat up. Assassins need plenty of nutrition to start their day.”

“Okay. I like that house rule.” Her smile strengthened gratefully, and she shoved a big bite of moonberry tart into her mouth.

Ethari chuckled and stood to leave. Rayla shot Runaan a hopeful glance, and he gave her a gentle nod for her mission’s success. Her soft little brows bent, and she nodded firmly in return before stuffing another mouthful of moonberry tart into her face. Runaan tried to hide his grin as he turned to follow his husband.

Out in the hall, Runaan was just pulling on Rayla’s door when Ethari’s heavy hand clapped companionably atop his shoulder. “Runaan,” he murmured, grinning wickedly, “you remembered all those house rules, after all this time?”

“I… Your rules are always important to me, Ethari,” Runaan blurted.

Ethari tilted his horns speculatively. “Did it ever occur to you that those were one-offs, said in moments of exasperation?”

Runaan blinked. “Did it ever occur to you,” he asked softly, “that once I know I’ve exasperated you, I never want to do it again? …In that exact manner?” he added with reluctance.

Ethari straightened Runaan’s collar with delicate little tugs and smoothed his shirt across the tops of his shoulders. “My shade,” he murmured, “if you don’t kiss me in the next three seconds, I’ll be forced to kiss you first.”

Runaan smiled in pleasant surprise and drew Ethari closer with a soft hand alongside his cheek until their lips met. When they parted for breath, he murmured, “I’d never wish you to feel forced into such a hardship.”

Ethari squinted one eye at him. “Teasing? At this early hour of the day? You’re just glowing with purpose today, aren’t you?”

“I suppose so—” Runaan began, but Ethari didn’t let him finish.

“To the task, then,” he said briskly. That wicked amusement was back. “While we search for my _elusive_ house rules masterlist, I expect that razor sharp memory of yours to recite everything that’s on it.”

“Yes, my light. There may be… a few additions… to consider?” Runaan raised his brows.

Ethari’s sigh was audibly patient. “Runaan. What did you tell her?”

Runaan’s hands fluttered. “I… merely… You’re good with rules. Surely you can come up with seven just for her. They’ll make her feel welcome.”

Ethari’s eyes narrowed. “Seven.”

“Yes.”

“New house rules.”

Runaan paused. “…Yes?”

“ _Seven_.”

Oh, he’d overstepped, alright. Runaan cleared his throat and tried to start over. “…Ethari… I…”

Alas, it was too late. The warm glimmers in Ethari’s eyes had sharpened to a bright and sassy edge. “You’re coming with me, mister. You start thinking, and I’ll start writing.”

“But— _oop_ —”

Runaan caught a flash of Rayla’s surprised face through the gap in her doorway as Ethari’s big hand made a fist in the center of Runaan’s recently smoothed shirt and pulled. The assassin found himself jerked off his feet, tossed over a burly shoulder, and escorted bodily down the hall toward Ethari’s workshop. “House Rule #28, Runaan: If you tell your daughter that your husband has crafted rules that don’t yet exist, then you’d better be prepared for some of those as-yet-unwritten rules to end up applying to you. Because they absolutely will.”

Runaan dangled upside down over Ethari’s shoulder and pretended to struggle lightly against Ethari’s grasp. “That’s… a very specific… house rule…”

Ethari grinned, gave his husband’s waist a fond squeeze, and kept walking. “They always are.”

**Author's Note:**

> I asked @mynewgroove to give me a prompt, and gosh was I motivated to write this! Thank you, fam. I had such good feels writing this, and I hope you have good feels from reading it!


End file.
